Healthcast 659 - Iodine: Why You Need this Supplement!

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If you have hypothyroidism (Low thyroid), fibrocystic breasts, fatigue, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hair loss, obesity, or high cholesterol then taking supplemental Iodoral can improve these diseases.  These conditions have become an epidemic in the United States due to Iodine deficiency.

My longevity medical practice is all about keeping my patients healthy so they can live not only a longer life but one with quality. In the last 20 years of my BioBalance® Health practice, I have seen a flood of new patients with conditions that are in part secondary to iodine deficiency.  Today in America, the majority of people need iodine and other supplements to their diet for many reasons:

• Food manufacturers don’t supplement our foods as they did in the years from the 1940s to 2000.
• The food that we eat (even fresh food) contains less nutrition than they did 50 years ago.
• Fast food diets, processed foods and preservatives remove necessary vitamins and minerals that we need to be healthy.
• Alcohol leaches nutrients from our bodies and alcohol consumption is increasing.
• Chemical pollution has entered our food supply and now is stored in our bodies.
• We have added a chemical to our drinking water, fluoride, which displaces Iodine in our bodies leaving us Iodine deficient.

Today I am going to address the symptoms and diseases of Iodine deficiency. This blog about Iodine is to inform you about the need for Iodine and what it does.  I hope to never have to remind my patients about taking this supplement again after listening to the associated podcast or reading this blog!

Iodine is a micronutrient necessary for life. In a research article in the Journal, Frontiers of Nutrition, March 2024, a very succinct review of the illnesses that occur because of iodine deficiency and that can be treated (partially) with iodine supplementation. I recommend all of my patients who live in my area which has no iodine in the soil or ground water and where all the drinking water is fluorinated.  The Iodine supplement, Iodoral, is not a drug, but a nutritional supplement that is sold over the counter. The Iodoral 12.5 mg bottle of 90 is $14.50 for 3-6 months supply.  You can’t afford NOT to take it!

Why do we need this supplement at this time in America and many first world countries?  Governmental intervention in our basic need for water caused most of our deficiencies.  Iodine is produced naturally in the ocean by seaweed, and it is contained in the soil and ground water in areas of the country that are near the ocean and those areas that were covered by ocean water millions of years ago. So, if you think geographically, most of the US is in that “map”, except the Midwest.  However, man and government has intervened and caused our population to be iodine deprived by adding Fluoride to our water.

The government and the FDA make decisions for us without looking at the subsequent damage that might be done by those decisions. In the 1949 the US government decided that EVERYONE needed to be protected from dental cavities so 75 years ago we fluorinated our water and that decision led to the epidemic of iodine deficiency. Fluoride in your drinking and cooking water literally replaces iodine, and takes its place molecularly, leading to generations of people with 25% fewer cavities and 100% increase in the list of diseases I have listed in the first paragraph!   Fluoride is the biggest cause of thyroid disease. Wouldn’t it be better to use fluoride toothpaste once a day than drink it?

In some areas of the country, called the “Goiter Belt”, we don’t have any iodine in the natural ground water, so locally grown food does not contain Iodine.  These regions have had a history of high percentage of the population with low thyroid, and goiters, even before we added fluoride to drinking water.  This compounds the problem and the diseases from Iodine deficiency. I live in that area!

Before the 1970s iodine was required to be added to bread, salt and a few other foods. Ever since I have been seeing more Eating designer salt has caused people to not even get iodine in the salt they eat,  Now we use all kinds of salt most of which don’t have iodine in them,.

So now you know what the problem is today as well as the answer, Iodine supplementation with Iodoral® every day!

How do you know if you have low Iodine and or Hypothyroidism?

Symptoms of low iodine mirror those of low thyroid:

• fatigue,
• swelling,
• Abdominal bloating and pain
• Constipation
• hair loss and broken frizzy hair,
• brittle nails,
• dry skin,
• cold body temperature BBT less than or equal to 98 degrees Fahrenheit,
• weight gain,
• depression,
• slow metabolism,
• slow pulse
• low BP
• fibrocystic breasts

So what will taking Iodoral® do for you beyond reversing the symptoms above?

1. Improved thyroid function which decreases fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, brittle nails, swelling, and slow metabolism….

The benefits to you and your thyroid gland are immense! Your thyroid hormones control your metabolism and control your thermostat. Every cell in your body requires thyroid, and therefore require Iodine.  If your body doesn’t have enough heat, then your enzymes can’t work and our cells can’t do their jobs, heal themselves and skin, muscles and all our tissues suffer.

How does that work? Thyroid hormones T1, T2, T3, and T4  are made from one amino acid, Tyrosine, an 1-4 Iodine molecules!  The molecular structure of Iodine calls for plenty of iodine nutrient in the blood stream to make thyroid hormones and  to attach to iodine receptors on each cell that uses thyroid in your body.

2. Preserve the health and function of your thyroid gland.
3. You will feel warmer, your pulse and blood pressure will normalize. You will lose weight.

Your thyroid hormone keeps your body warm by stimulating mitochondria to burn calories.  In this way thyroid hormone controls your weight, how fast you burn calories, how energetic you are, how well you think, how your hair and nails grow just to name a few benefits of thyroid. You need to add iodine to your diet to produce thyroid hormones to maintain all these vital functions for you!

• Prevention of Fibrocystic Breast Disease. Women’s breasts absorb a lot of iodine and need Iodine to be healthy. The absorption by the breasts of iodine steals I from the thyroid and accounts for women having a much higher incidence of Hypothyroidism.  The thyroid is starved without iodine and “dies”.  Hypothyroidism is a Woman’s disease!
• Fibrocystic Breast Disease. Women’s breasts are iodine sensitive and years of low Iodine can cause Fibrocystic Breast Disease. This is not a precancerous condition, but it makes it harder to find a cancer in a breast on a mammogram.
• Weight Loss/Avoid Metabolic Syndrome

For both sexes Iodine is needed to maintain blood sugar control and the control of obesity.  It is one of the necessary nutrients when it comes to weight loss.  More importantly it can prevent Metabolic syndrome which is a combination of high blood sugar (diabetes/prediabetes), obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol. If you have Metabolic Syndrome, you are at higher risk for Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, and early Death.  It doesn’t take just iodine to treat this syndrome once you have it, but Iodine is key to making your medical treatments, diet, and exercise work to decrease your medical risks of disease and early death.

• Lower your LDL Cholesterol

Hypothyroidism causes an increase in LDL Cholesterol; therefore it may increase the incidence of heart disease.

Organ Systems Other than the Thyroid Need Iodoral:

As you can see by the list above, vital organs other than the thyroid accumulate/store Iodine: salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, ovary and testes, which has led to the new realization that Iodine has effects outside of the thyroid.

Other Results of Replacing Iodine to what is clinically considered a high level in the US.

• Blood sugar is lowered by adequate Iodine blood levels (199-299 mcg/L).
• Insulin resistance is improved by taking Iodoral
• Hypertension lowered to its lowest point when blood levels were between (300-499)
• Gout: the higher the iodine, the lower the uric acid in the blood, therefore fewer Gout attacks.
• Mortality rates increase to 33-75% higher in people with low iodine levels.
• Inflammation and inflammatory diseases improve with iodine supplementation
• Immune modulation is one of the benefits of iodine. If you have a poor immune system, it improves your resistance to communicable diseases. If you have autoimmune disease Iodine improves these diseases.

How could supplementing Iodine, removing Fluoride, from our drinking water do for us individually and our country? Japan is an example of high Iodine levels that benefit health.

 What happens in other countries with adequate iodine levels?  Japan has the highest level of iodine in the blood because they consume seaweed in their diet and most of their water and food has iodine in it. Of course, Japan is an island surrounded by iodized seawater! They consume 7 x the average amount of Iodine as Americans with healthy consequences. Japan has one of the lowest incidences of Metabolic syndrome and the diseases included in it.  A study on Iodine consumption revealed that obese women had a significant weight loss when eating food in Japan.

Summary:

We all need iodine in our food and water or if we can’t get it, we must supplement it with an over the counter supplement, Iodoral ½-1 tablet a day (12.5 mg tablet). The
“normal” reference ranges are skewed to the low iodine level, so many people stop taking iodine when they follow the reference ranges, however in this research paper the ideal blood levels were considered healthy up to 100- 399mcg/L while the Quest and Labcorps reference ranges are 52-109, much lower than what is considered healthy by research studies.

Iodine does not cause hyperthyroidism, however if someone has hyperthyroidism there is controversy as to whether Iodine should be supplemented. Make your choice: Health with an inexpensive supplement (Iodoral) or illness with fluoride and without Iodine.